The Vault №10

Let us guess. You're new around here. You stumble in, bleary-eyed and confused, reeking of desperation from trying to ring a worthwhile result out of "good flash games" on your search engine of choice. You've stuck around because you love the daily content, but you've failed to crack open the archives. Or maybe you've been around for a while; you know the drill, you've posted a walkthrough or a helpful comment or two, and we no longer have to hide the fact that we don't know your name by awkwardly covering it with a cough when we bump into you at the water cooler. But you've still missed out on a lot, because, let's face it, six years of JIG is a lot of awesome for anyone to keep track of.

Whatever the case, welcome to our newest feature, The Vault, designed to highlight the vintage casual titles of yesteryear you may have missed or should renew your acquaintance with. Each week we'll bring you a handful of our favourite games that may be a little long in the tooth (at least as far as the attention span of the internet goes) but definitely deserve to be taken down off the shelf and enjoyed.

The Asylum - Part puzzle, part narrative, this classic from 2004 centering around traumatized toys who need your help to unravel their pasts by delving into their psyches. There are five patients who need you to figure out how to reach them, and while some of their issues may seem silly, the game is surprisingly touching in places and uses almost no dialogue at all to tell a story. It also has the distinction of being the first game I played on this site, and one of the only flash games to ever make me tear up. (No, you're a big baby! I'M TELLING.) I hadn't thought about it in a few years, but once I saw it again, I wondered how I'd ever forgotten it. Highly recommended.

Nanaca Crash - Chances are, if you're a fan of launch games, you already know about this gem from 2005. If not, prepare to be amazed. And bewildered. Mostly... bewildered. Centering around using a bicycle driven by an exciteable teenage girl to violently slam into an unsuspecting lad and send him hurtling into the air, the goal is simply to make him fly as far as possible using power-ups and a cast of other anime characters along the way. It has nine different characters to "interact" with, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, which means Nanaca Crash is one of those sneaky "one more time" titles that can potentially devour your entire afternoon if you let it. Don't believe us? Ask any older siblings who might happen to be casual gaming fans. Their haunted stares and twitching fingers should be answer enough.

The Dark Room - Friend, how's your gray matter today? Feel up to a little puzzle-solving with minimal instruction? Then might we recommend this fine title from Jonathan May? Trapped inside a small dark cube, all you have are your wits, your mouse, and the strange spots on every visible surface that seem to react to touch. If you want out, you're going to have to figure out what, exactly, you're required to do. At the time, The Dark Room seemed like an incredibly impressive achievement for its 3D-in-Flash visual style and sink-or-swim approach to gameplay... and it still does seem like one, frankly. Not only is it visually striking, it's filled with great "Woooooooow" moments of epiphany that makes this a classic example of puzzle done right with a load of style to boot.

While we welcome any comments about this new weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!

Mmmm, Dark Room. That was the game that made me come back again and again to this site, often in hopes of finding more like it. It's not my favorite anymore, but it's one of my first, and I still have my notes from it!

The Dark Room (and its precursor? sequel?) was one of the first games I played of the 'escape the room' variety and made me addicted to them. I honestly think this, MOTAS, and the Submachine series are the best of the lot. I wish another May hadn't stopped at two (did he?).

Six years? I've been a regular visitor since late 2004, and I recall at one point even going back and looking at Jay's blog entries before it became a flash game collection. If only I wasn't so lazy I could be a moderator too!

Ah, the good old days. When I stumbled into JIG as part of a grad class assignment in 2007 and never left.

I have been on a hunt for old games recently and you just made my job easier. Do you guys want us to make recommendations? That might be a pain, but it might also be a good way to get a handle on the kinds of games we miss from the "old days".

As a matter of fact, I'd love to WRITE one of these--I'd call it "How JIG Ruined My Life" and it would likely include Samarost (the game that brought me here in the first place), Banner Game by Rob Allen, the original Grow game, and Ring Pass Not.

I think this means I'm officially an old soul in jayisgames land - I've played all of these, and played Asylum multiple times and own multiple of the stuffed animals they sell. I have been following regularly for the past 4.5 years, so I guess it's a good thing I finally got an official user name a few weeks ago.

Wow, six years...at least i can blame the wife..."find me a game I would like..."
search: 'stuffed animal game'...
Is this the first online game to spawn offline plush toys?
OMG!! GrinnyP has a blog....why was i not told this sooner?! Can i subscribe? can i become a friend? (although probably not advisable, as i seem to have an acute RE addiction) Will the link to the weekday escape be personally mailed to my inbox, saving me valuable time and mouse clicking. In the hope to become the first person to read the walkthrough, cos i got stuck on the base 9 maths puzzles...Grrr!

I've just finished the Dark Room, this is so good I can't believe it. I've tried the two others, they are great also. Thanks for the suggestions!
The Vault is a great idea. Usually I think "old" games must look old and not be as good as the recent ones, but this proves I'm definitely wrong! In fact, maybe it's the newer ones that are not so great??? I guess the selection is the creme de la creme...

If I don't see Spybot: The Nightfall Incident on an upcoming Vault, I'll be pretty disappointed. By the way, the day I found out that you guys actually hosted the game on your site and we weren't relying on an unstable webarchive page, I was extraordinarily happy for the rest of the day.

Aw, I love the asylum. It is one of the first games I played here, so I put it on my favorites list for ever after. It's never coming off of there. I think it's really great, bringing attention to some of the older games in this feature.

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